Long Melford Community Association History of Long Melford Community Association

On the 5th October 1967, Long Melford Parish Council called a meeting of the villagers to consider forming a Community Council. By 30th November, membership stood at 739 and in February 1968, a steering committee were elected as the first Long Melford Community Council.

A village lottery was organised and the first draw took place on 30th November 1967.

By 29th August 1968, the Community Council arranged for the installation of children’s playground equipment in Cordell Place and on 7th May 1972, a new sports field was opened and the following year more land was purchased to provide tennis courts for the village.

By then, the membership had risen to over 1200 and social and fund raising activities were organised, including dances and an annual fete and from 1969 – 1978 there were ‘Miss Long Melford’ contests. In 1968, following an idea by John Abbot, the first public Firework Display was held, which from the following year was called ‘The Big Night Out’. This is still held annually very successfully organised and run by Project 7.

The Village Gazette, a quarterly journal was commenced in 1969, which was later superseded by the present ‘What’s On’, which is distributed to each household in the village.

By the early 1980’s, the old village school became available for purchase for a sum of £55,000 – a substantial amount at the time. The Parish Council provided some financial backingand a huge money raising project was instigated with numerous activities going on including Table Sales, which are still a major funding source today. Due to a lot of hard work, the project was successful and the Old School was saved for the village forever.

In the process, the Community Council become known as the Long Melford Community Association which still exists for the benefit of all villagers.

Fund raising still continues and money raised is put towards maintaining the Old School, purchasing and maintaining equipment for the children’s playground and area and to assist our local cricket club and any other facilities that may be considered to improve the life of the village.

The day to day running and maintenance of the Old School is conducted by a sub committee of the Community Association and named the Old School Management Committee (see separate section).